Spotify is causing a major problem for economists

In the old days, economists could count cars coming out of an automobile factory. They could count freight containers on ships in ports, and get an idea of whether trade was growing, and where exports and imports were headed.

But if Spotify, based in Sweden, sells a subscription to someone in the UK, that “export” is unlikely to be picked up in the trade measurement data. Even if it is detected in Sweden’s tax data, it won’t be reported and factored into Swedish GDP or months or years.